Raid Bosses
History When the Raid boss first launched in October, 2015 it had a few problem. *Chief problem at launch was that the private invite links did not work. The workaround was to make your boss Public and send the boss link to the people you wanted. *If your Raid party got killed the health of the boss would reset back up to 100% and you would have to start over and the XP that everyone in the raid party got from attacking would be reduced from then onwards. *There also seemed to be an issue with the count for the tiers being incorrect, ie. the number of places filled is less than the number of attackers. This could have be down to players joining the raid without actually attacking. *A player's had to have enough personal health to be out of hospital. This was causing problems because as you do not lose personal health when attacking a Raid boss you were open to attack by other players for all the time you spend attacking and healing giving some a free lunch. There were also a number of complaints about the Raid Boss * ] If you did manage to kill the original Raid boss the rewards were not that impressive. As well as the expected XP and coins one player only got skill points. This is after spending 100s of FP in order to beat it. At the time of its first release the Cave Dragon, Raid boss dropped items with a strength of 565 but there was a limited, 25 FP item for sale, The Crimson Greatbow with a strength of 564 *The keys required too much energy to collect. *The high health of the raid boss was another cause of contention. The first version of the Cave Dragon, had 891.3 billion Health, compare that with the highest co-op boss I can find at the moment, a level 112, The Last Stand of Heimdallr, which only has 444.92 billion health and can be attacked by up to 50 players of any level. *If you posted your boss on World Chat there were rumours of Vikings going around deliberately killing the health of a raiding party. *There was also a minor problem with to do with duplicate displays of the same Raid boss on the Boss list but this was quickly fixed. A couple of these issues received definite fixes *To make the Raid Boss easier to kill after the Raid party's health has been wiped out checkpoints were introduced. Every 10% (of full health) you get the Boss's Health down will create a save-point. Now if the raid party gets killed instead of regaining full health the Boss' health will only recover as far as this save-point. *The invite system is more straightforward but it still seems to have a few problems. *You now get a guaranteed reward drop for every Raid Boss you participate in that ends with a kill. *The requirement to have personal health while attacking or healing for Raid bosses has been dropped. *Key now much easier to find and the locations are restricted to the first few locations which have lower energy requirements per adventure. *The initial health of Raid bosses has been lowered to around half what it was making bosses much easier to kill off. *They also said that player who is responsible for the raid party wiping out twice will only be able to heal until that Raid boss is finished. *The amount of energy and the frequency of the drops has been increased. (based on post #130 of this thread.) Changes to the Raid Boss 13th August, 2015 Another adjustment to the level bands. The lower tier now goes to 3000, the middle one now goes up another 1500 to 7,499. 12th March, 2015 Top two Level bands adjusted. Mid level now goes to 4999 up 1,000 levels. 17th July Slight changes to Eldjotunn. * Initial health increased from 445.8 million to 455.7 million (9.9 million up) * Key locations changed from 1st 4 locations to locations 2 to 5. * Key names changed from: Key of Ragnarok, Key of Fire, Key of Enormity and Key of Rage. Lower band's upper limit increased to 2500. Middle band range increased by another 1,000 levels (adding 500 levels) so top tier now starts at 6000+ The rate of health drops seems to be lower 8th October, 2015 Skogsra raid boss introduced. Levels banding rehashed again. Lower limit raised to 3500. Middle band is now 3501 up to 8999 which means the upper band now starts at 9000. The boss tab now shows you whether or not you have reach the minimum to get a drop if the Raid boss is killed. The Benching rule has been extended so that it now possible to get benched for the rest of the event. 5th November, 2015 Gendel's Mother returns with new key names. Keys were called: South Midgard - Key of Grief, Ageir's Sea - Key of Water, Ageir's Passage - Key of Protection and Vanaheim - Key of Maternity. 3rd December, 2015 *New raid boss, Hafgufa, is released. *Raid bosses now have their own button and heading in the Bosses window but instead of being a drop-down like Coop bosses, both methods take you to a separate window where your raid bosses are displayed. *Although they now have their own display current, finished and failed Raid bosses are still listed amongst ordinary Coop bosses. *Keys seem a little easier to get taking on average 100 adventures to collect all 4 28th January, 2016 *New raid boss, Disir, is released. *Raid boss button is only available when the feature is live the rest of the time it is replaced with a full width select panel. *Raid band level requirements changed again. Low is up to 5K. Middle 5K to 10K. High 10K+ *The message, Our Raid has perished to the Disir. We must rebuild!, now displays in red. 21st April, 2016 The Skogsra returns. Key names are now Pine key, Charcoal key, Hidden key and Mound key. 16th June, 2016 It is the turn of Hafgufa again. Keys have been changed to: Pisces, Apex, Plated and Prehistoric. The boss' initial health has also increased by 1.367 million to 487.38 million. 8th September, 2016 Kano updated the Raid boss page to show you your likelihood of getting a superior drop. According to the forum page none of the underlying mechanics have been changed. They did give however seemed to confirm a suspicion held by quite a few players. That idea being that, your chance of getting a superior drop is, to a certain extent, dependant on how much effort is put into the boss by the other players. The more effort they do the smaller your chance of a purple is. 7th October, 2016 Kano have decided to up the band levels again. The middle tier is now levels 6001 - 10999 up from the previous range of 5001 - 9999. 3rd November, 2016 Once again the level ranges within the tiers have been adjusted. The lower tier now spans 1 - 5699. The middle goes from 5700 - 11199 and the upper starts at 11200. The tiers on the other 2 servers have also been changed. Server2: Lower 0 - 4049, Middle 4050 - 8479 and Upper 8750+ Armor&Kong: Lower 1 - 4249, Middle 4250 - 8499 and Upper 8500+ The way the system deals with unused keys has also been changed. You can still redeem them manually but now if the keys have not been collected manually by the start of the next raid, then this will be done for you automatically. This even applies to keys from before the last raid boss. 24th February, 2017 The drop rewards now presented in a pop-up window instead of in a block to the left of the boss graphic. 20th April, 2017 This round of Raid bosses brings a nice little refinement to attacks and healing. Previously when healing or attacking from the triple button line an award of free Energy would upset the flow of repeated actions by forcing the buttons to drop down a line. Displaying the Energy award would often caused the next attempted button press to miss. The new display now acts more like a graphic so that no extra line is inserted which means the buttons no longer move. 15th June, 2017 This round sees a change of item for the boss, Saehrimnir. Rather than simply upgrade the stats of the existing items all of the drops have been replaced with version II items. Basically the same name with II tagged on the end. All have had a massive boost in strength of between 180 - 200 per item. 10th August, 2017 This time round it's the Fenrir's items that get the version 2 treatment. 7th September, 2017 Grendel's Mother gets the version II items. Category:Bosses Category:Content What are Raid Bosses All About? The Raid Boss is a monthly event run over 4 days. Individual bosses have a 4 day countdown timer. There is no limit to the number of Raid Bosses you can summon (but you can only summon one at a time) or participate in over the duration of the event. As with all bosses the aim is to reduce the health of the boss down to zero by attacking it. For killing a boss you get drops which may be common or superior. Superior boss drops have very good stats, similar to those of a time limited (25 FP) item. Raid Bosses differ from other types of boss, in quite a few ways: *They remain at the same strength no matter how many times they are killed. *The number of attackers in level bands is restricted. Usually you will find the top two tiers are quickly filled but this is rarely the case with the lower level band. *Raid boss counter-attacks have no effect on the personal health of their attackers *The attackers have a shared health between them (usually in the 200,000 to 300,000 range when at least 18 players occupy the 2 highest bands) and it is this that the boss depletes. *The raid party can actually be killed so individual members of the raid party are expected to heal the damage done by the boss as a result of their attacks. *They do not drop random items but they will drop random amounts of energy at random times. *They give far more XP per attack than expected from a location boss with similar attack and defence stats. Summoning a Raid Boss To summon a Raid Boss you need to collect four keys from four different Locations within the game. Keys can drop from any quests within the stated Location. Raid Boss keys are found in four Locations. In order to summon a Raid Boss you need a key from each of the four Locations. The only real restriction on summoning a Raid boss is whether your level is high enough to access all the locations where the keys can be found. Logically this means you have to be at least level 100 to reach the first location in Aegir's Passage (assuming that is the highest location). The highest Energy requirement quests in a Location will have the highest chance of dropping a key. There is a module that appears near the top of the page that shows you which keys you’ve got (and how many of them) and has a button leading to the next Location (level permitting) where you can earn a key from. If you have extra keys in your inventory when the Raid Boss event ends they can be exchanged for additional XP (2% of XP required to level). Keys do not have any uses outside of summoning a Raid Boss, they do have nominal stats of 1/1 but they cannot be equipped. The Raid Group Once you have the 4 keys required you can start your Raid Boss. Raid Bosses are a little different from Co-op/World Bosses in that you are restricted to 3 tiers of 10 members in your Raid group. These tiers are dependant on a Viking's level: Lower tier is Level: 1 - 5700 Middle Tier is Level: 5701 - 11199 Upper Tier is Level: 11200+ As Raid Bosses are private by default each tier while private will has a specific invite code. Only players in that tier’s level range can use the code to join a Raid Boss. If an owner refreshes the invite code on a particular tier it will invalidate any previous invites in that tier that have not been accepted yet. Raid Bosses can also be shared publicly just like regular Bosses. The Raid group shares a separate Health pool calculated from the members’ overall Health and Defense skill points. The stats contributed by an individual player’s skill point values are locked when they join the Raid party. The Raid group Health pool will update when new members join the Raid. Fighting the Raid Boss The Raid Boss attack interface is based on the existing Boss fight interface. The main difference is that as well as the usual 1 - 4 Attack and 5 - 20 Attack options, there is also a “Heal Raid” button and the Power Attack button is now renamed Barrage. There seems to be no advantage to doing a Barrage attack like there is for a Power Attack. As with other similar events in the game attack gets far more XP than defence. A heal action will typically get you less than 10% of the XP that an attack would although based on original skill point usage you should only get 50% less for using Energy. When attacked the Raid Boss hits back, very hard, so keeping the Raid group health up is vital because of this players with high energy play an important role. The Raid Boss will occasionally drop energy when you are attacking or healing. The amount you get varies but will typically be in the range 11 to 45 (from personal experience). An energy drop is displayed as an extra line showing the amount. You will usually notice this because the display drops down by the extra line that it adds so instead of hitting the Barrage or Heal button you miss. As with the Daily Energy Boost these energy drops are capable of filling your energy store above its maximum capacity. In order to qualify for a payout when the Raid boss is killed you have to do a minimum of 2,000 actions per Raid boss, 1,000 of which must be Heal actions. You get Heal actions, naturally enough, by healing your raid party. Each unit of Energy spent healing is 1 heal action but you can only heal for 20 Energy. Similarly each unit of Stamina you use to attack is worth 1 attack. Strategy The lower your party health is the less damage you do and the more heals it takes to restore the party health. You can exploit this to increase the number of heals you do but it is really not advisable to attack the raid boss too many times without healing. If someone else is attacking at the same time your combined attacks might be enough to wipe out the party health and kill you before you notice. After the timer runs out on the event the reverse of the above makes good strategy. Since no more bosses are being created it makes sense to preserve the bosses that are left for as long as possible. Attacking when the party health is low (Careful, red or brown) will give the same XP as green but do less damage. Less damage means the boss will last longer so you get more XP from it. I would only recommend this if the bosses health is in the red and the boss has more than a day to go. In extreme cases I would go even further and actually kill the health for 10% or even twice for 20% boss life. The XP is reduced a little bit but is still far above what you would get for a normal location boss. Killing the Raid Boss When a Raid Boss is defeated, each player, who made the minimum number of actions, will get a loot item. Each of the 6 items has 2 types: a common and a superior version. Each member of the pair are the same apart from the colouring but have different names and strength. Once a Raid Boss is killed you can immediately start another one if you have the needed keys. Superior Items The superior items are a unique group of items in that they have purple coloured text. In terms of attack and defence strength, Superior items are a significantly weaker than current Limited Time (25FP) items. When they first came out the were just a little bit weaker but as their stats stay the same from launch to launch they have fallen behind and now lag by at least 180 at time of writing (November, 2016). To be in with a chance of getting a superior item it looks like you have to be one of the top 2 highest actions in your tier Your chances getting a superior drop are shown to you as your actions increase. Chances range from IMPOSSIBLE (where you have not even reached minimum actions) through to AMAZING. In between these, in rising order of likelihood are: DECENT, PRETTY GOOD and GREAT. Even with a rating of Amazing you still might not get a superior drop. Someone in your tier could put in more actions than you and lower you down to Pretty Good. There also seems to be a random chance involved so even Amazing is no guarantee of a Superior drop. It is rare, but not unheard of, to get a superior drop without being rated Amazing. Benching This is applied to someone that kills the heal on a Raid boss twice. After they are benched they will only be able to perform healing on that particular Raid boss. Anyone who kills the raid party health on 3 separate Raid bosses will be benched for the rest of the event. This was introduced after at least one player started joining Raids in order to deliberately kill the health. So now an individual is restricted to killing the health of raid parties a maximum of 5 times before being benched event-wide. The only exception to being benched event-wide is when a player is fighting the Raid boss which they summoned. Category:Bosses Category:Content Acknowledgements This article was based on these two forum threads: Raid bossesand Eldjotunn walkthrough. Raid Bosses This section shows the updated Cave Dragon (of 12th March, 2015). The original Cave dragon can still be found on the talk page. The Grendel Eldjotunn Fenrir Original Fenrir Cave Dragon Grendel's Mother Original Version Saehrimnir Introduced 18th June, 2015 Original Items The Wild Hunt Introduced 13th August, 2015 Skogsra Introduced 8th October, 2015 Hafgufa Introduced 3rd December, 2015 Disir Introduced 28th January, 2016 Svartalfr Assassin Introduced 24th March, 2016 Wendigo Introduced 19th May, 2016 Ulfhednar (the raid boss) Introduced: 13th July, 2017 Category:Bosses Category:Content